Selamat Siang Parents,

It is hard to believe we are almost halfway through the term with so many wonderful learning opportunities happening within our community from Year Prep- Year 6. The Hub news is a real pleasure for me to read each fortnight, not only sharing news with you moving forward, but also celebrating the learning that has taken place in the previous fortnight. The staff in each hub do a wonderful job bringing motivating and stimulating learning to your children. Some extra curricula highlights have been the Preps visiting Sea View Manor with the experience adding great value to their learning. A parent caught me at the gate recently and said it was wonderful on their visit to have two 100 year old women share their advice in life which was to always be kind. He said it was great because they reinforced with our Preps the same message they are getting from school and home. A huge congratulations also to the Year 6 football team who came runners up in the next stage of the regional competition and the Mixed netball who just played in the next stage of Regionals too. A group of our potential Respectful Relationships Leaders from Year 5 also did us proud, participating in workshops around gender equality and respectful relationships and playing in the Respect Cup in Geelong.

Eucharist: Yesterday we saw the second group  of Year 4 celebrate their First Eucharist. Terima kasih to  Fr Darien, the teachers and parents for preparing them. Congratulations to the following students: Eliza Ashton, Maggie Ashton, Raimend Bernazzoli, Bede Clarke, Mitchell Cook, Zavier Godfrey Lilli Godfrey, Isla James, Lincoln McCall, Xavier Monahan, Rhys O'Neil, Edward Quayle, Alice Sampson, Frankie Wilkens, Tess Wolfe, Zara Bellingham, Baxter Briggs, Alyssa Coghlan, Maddie Gibbon, Augie Graham, Tessa Leen, Melissa McDonald, Chris Nutt, Briony Peplow, Charlie Rae, Miller Wellard, Stella Williams.

Indonesian: This Friday we will be celebrating our Indonesian Day. Bu Bree has led us beautifully this year as a learning community in our immersion program, ensuring we are learning and using functional language daily. We thank Bu Bree for enabling the transition this Year for Prep-6 students and staff to be learning Indonesian in such a meaningful, supported way.

Learning languages, in addition to English, extends student’s literacy repertoires, including comprehension and their capacity to communicate. It strengthens student’s understanding of the nature of language, culture, and the processes of communication.

We have been set a challenge this week to take every opportunity to use the language and record in our classes when we hear it being used. The competition is titled 

"Did I hear Indonesian?" 

Apakah - did/do

saya - I

dengar - hear/listen

Bahasa Indonesia - Indonesian

Perhaps at home you can take the opportunity to learn from your children. It is amazing how quickly children are able to learn and use this language. 

School Improvement Surveys (CEMSIS)- Towards the end of the term, we will be participating in the CEMSIS – Catholic Education Melbourne School Improvement Survey which is a comprehensive collection of data from students, staff and families. It is an opportunity to gain feedback and also celebrate successes within our learning community. We believe it is timely and will provide a rich source of information that will further enhance our strategic directions and implementation of our annual improvement actions. Please read more specific information below from Paul and myself.

Working Bee: A reminder we have a Working Bee this Sunday 18 August from 10 am - 12 noon. If you are able to support for any time it would be greatly appreciated as we have we have a number of tasks listed. Please bring any gardening tools along such as gloves, tools, rakes. Everybody welcome and particularly a focus on Yellow and Blue Hub families for this working Bee, Come along to get some House Points for your child's team and continue to build on our great community spirit..

Coffee Friday- Continuing on with our focus as a whole learning community on Sustainability and looking for opportunities to further enhance our school grounds, please refer to the opportunity in the Sustainability section of this newsletter for proceeds from Coffee Friday to go towards sustainability and biodiversity in our school. 

Here is a great article from the Council website of our school’s action with Tree Planting. Star of the Sea Tree Planting Thankyou again to Kellie Clark and all the Year 6 students, staff and parents involved.

Given that we are moving into the second half of Term 3, we are also looking towards next year and beginning to plan class structures and staffing for 2020. May I please ask if you are not returning in 2020, that you let us know as soon as you are able.

Berkat (Blessings) for the fortnight ahead

Kerryn